Karaoke Cafe BOSA. 2022. Japan. Directed by Kaori Oda. North American premiere. In Japanese; English subtitles. 13 min.
GAMA. 2023. Japan. Directed by Kaori Oda. North American premiere. In Japanese; English subtitles. 53 min.
Kaori Oda, winner of the Pia Film Festival’s first Oshima Prize (awarded by jury members including Ryuichi Sakamoto and Kiyoshi Kurosawa), has come to be known in Japan for her sensory, immersive nonfiction work. Since studying at Béla Tarr's film.factory she has mostly shot films outside her home country, in such settings as a Bosnian coal mine and sinkholes in Mexico. For GAMA she gets closer to home, in Okinawa, and replaces her frenzied camerawork with static 16mm filmmaking. Her setting of choice, once again, is underground: the Chibichirigama cave, where 83 locals, believing death at the hands of American soldiers was imminent, committed mass suicide in the waning days of World War II. A local guide narrates this historical tragedy while choreographer Nao Yoshigai, embodying what could be a spirit, observes and protects this act of conservation. Karaoke Cafe BOSA, which opens the screening program, sees Oda explore even closer to home: her mother’s workplace in the outskirts of Osaka. Intimately shot with an 8mm camera, Oda’s film captures the warm ambience of a café where elderly women gather to sing and converse.